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ERIC EJ1016180: Living Alongside: Teacher Educator Experiences Working in a Community-Based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program PDF

2013·0.12 MB·English
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Living Alongside: Teacher Educator Experiences Working in a Community-Based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program Julian Kitchen Brock University John Hodson Lakehead University Abstract Aboriginal education in Canada needs to shift away from the assimilative model to a model of culturally responsive pedagogy. Teacher education programs that serve Aboriginal teachers have an important role to play in developing an education system that both meets mainstream and Indigenous criteria for success. This paper examines the experiences of teacher educators working in a community-based Aboriginal Bachelor of Education program that was developed through a university-community partnership. Through interviews with eight teacher educators working in the program, five themes emerged as important in effective and culturally responsive practice by teacher educators working with Aboriginal teacher candidates. Précis L'éducation des Autochtones au Canada a besoin de s'éloigner du modèle d'assimilation à un modèle de pédagogie adaptés à la culture. Programmes de formation des enseignants qui servent d'enseignants autochtones ont un rôle important à jouer dans le développement d'un système d'éducation qui répond à des critères à la fois traditionnels et autochtones de la réussite. Ce document examine les expériences des formateurs d'enseignants travaillant dans un baccalauréat à base communautaire autochtone du programme d'éducation qui a été développé grâce à un partenariat université-communauté. Grâce à des entrevues avec huit formateurs d'enseignants qui travaillent dans le programme, cinq thèmes ont émergé aussi important dans la pratique, efficace et adaptée à la culture par des formateurs d'enseignants travaillant avec les candidats enseignants autochtones. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 36, 2 (2013): 144 - 174 ©2013 Canadian Society for the Study of Education/ Société canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation LIVING ALONGSIDE 145 Living Alongside: Teacher Educator Experiences Working in a Community-Based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program Introduction International Indigenous education research offers “growing evidence that the culturally responsive model does, in fact, improve academic success” (Brayboy & Castagno, 2009, p. 31) for Aboriginal learners. This is bourne out both by mainstream criteria, such as higher standardized test scores, and Indigenous criteria, such as the preservation of language, culture, and sustaining the self-determination movement (Brayboy & Castagno, 2009). The engine that drives this emergent consensus among Indigenous peoples can be best described as education that embraces a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations rather than the assimilative model of the past and the present (Author, 2009). This notion of a “culturally responsive pedagogy of relations” is defined by Bishop, O’Sullivan & Berryman (2010) as: …education in which power is shared between self-determining individuals within non-dominating relations of interdependence; where culture counts; where learning is interactive, dialogic and spiral; and where participants are connected and committed to one another through the establishment of a common vision of what constitutes excellence in educational outcomes. (p. 20) Supporting a pedagogic shift of this magnitude presents significant challenges for existing Indigenous teacher education programs as many continue to be assimilative in 146 J. KITCHEN & J. HODSON orientation. In ideal circumstances, the shift towards a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations in teacher education will be achieved through the work of credentialed teacher educators who are culturally/linguistically proficient members of Aboriginal communities. Universities seeking to create culturally responsive teacher education programs—or revise programs that are assimilative in nature—confront one of the legacies of colonization: that individuals who combine professional credentials with competency in language and culture are not readily available. In Canada and elsewhere, Aboriginal education must of necessity begin with available human resources and help them to become agents of culturally responsive education for Aboriginal youth. A new 5-year Bachelor of Education Primary/Junior (Aboriginal) program (BEd) administered by a southern Ontario university in partnership with the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council in northwestern Ontario faced such challenges as it sought to identify and support teacher educators in its program. The instructors who taught courses in the program were a varied group that included a Nishnawbe-Aski educator, other Aboriginal educators, Euro-Canadian university professors with teaching and/or research experience with Aboriginal peoples, and experienced Euro-Canadian educators. This paper, which is part of a larger study of this program, focuses on the experiences of this group of eight teacher educators in the BEd program. Through an analysis of interviews conducted with those educators, we identified five themes as important in effective and culturally responsive practice by teacher educators working with Aboriginal teacher candidates: • Relational knowing, • Promoting self-identity and cultural identity, • Teaching through language and culture, LIVING ALONGSIDE 147 • Curriculum and pedagogical expertise • Epistemic conversations with Aboriginal staff. While many participants lacked the background to be truly culturally responsive— in the sense of teaching through language and culture—they enjoyed success due to their ability to live alongside teacher candidates. These five emergent themes are highlighted to explore what it means to live alongside Aboriginal teacher candidates and how culturally responsive teacher education programs can benefit Aboriginal peoples. . Theoretical Framework From the point of contact, teacher education has been the primary site in the struggle of Indigenous people to free themselves from assimilative forces and assert their right to self-determination (Smith, 1999). This goal is evident from the Coolangatta Statement (1999), a declaration of the educational rights of Indigenous peoples endorsed by the World Indigenous People Conference on Education. In addition to asserting the right to self-determination by Indigenous people in the establishment of schools, design of curriculum, and promotion of language, this statement identified Aboriginal participation as crucial in teacher certification and selection. This principles gained international credibility with the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Article 14.3 states: States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living 148 J. KITCHEN & J. HODSON outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language. Both Coolangatta and the UN Declaration reflect an emergent consensus that teacher education has a critical role to play in the success of “Indigenous peoples in (re)claiming and (re)creating their lives, languages, and futures” (Deyhle, Swisher, Stevens & Galvan, 2007, p. 330) and therefore must change to incorporate a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. TribalCrit (Brayboy, 2005), is a useful framework for critiquing existing approaches to teacher education, is also helpful in examining culturally responsive alternatives such as the BEd Program in Sioux Lookout. TribalCrit helps reframe issues in ways that are respectful of the lives of Aboriginal peoples. It recognizes that colonization is endemic to North American society and that there have been “systematic assaults on [Aboriginal] languages, religions, and communal ways of being” (Deyhle, et. al. 2007, p. 330) by colonizers in the Americas and throughout the world. These assaults have eradicated Aboriginal populations, displaced them from their land, disrupted their traditional ways of life and their heritage epistemology. Teacher education programs that are built on normative assumptions and judgments, such as many of the Native Teacher Education Programs (NTEPs) in Canada, have failed to account for “the multiple, nuanced, and historically - and geographically - located epistemologies and ontologies found in Indigenous communities” (Brayboy, 2005, p. 427) and have led to assimilative approaches to education that are not responsive to the cultural traditions of Aboriginal students (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008). Such colonization means that Western epistemic LIVING ALONGSIDE 149 knowledge and power structures predominate, leading to the dismissal of Indigenous ways of knowing and furthering the colonial agenda. It is important to recognize that university policies and practices, like those of other public institutions, are rooted in a history of imperialism (Brayboy, 2005). Canadian Aboriginal peoples, as community leaders acknowledge, face considerable challenges such as distressingly low educational outcomes due to colonization. Statistical evidence on Aboriginal academic outcomes in Ontario demonstrates the futility of maintaining the pedagogic status quo for the 55,000 Aboriginal students enrolled in the province’s elementary and secondary schools (Ontario Ministry of Education [OME], 2007). Almost half of all Aboriginal peoples aged 15 years and over have less than a high school diploma (OME, 2007). Over 42% of 15 to 25 year olds left school with less than a high school education (Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2001). Aboriginal leaders also worry about the declining health of their communities and the decline in knowledge of language and culture among their young (Statistics Canada, 2003). For example, the proportion of North American Indian children with an Aboriginal mother tongue fell from 9% in 1996 to 7% in 2001 (Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2001). Also, more than 12% of Aboriginal Canadians between the ages of 15 and 29 drop out before Grade 9; and 37.5% of 15 to 24 year olds are neither in formal schooling nor employed in the workforce (Robertson, 2003). These indices reflect a socially constructed reality that is often ignored by those charged with the responsibility for public education. Acknowledging these realities is a first step in re-establishing liminal spaces in which Aboriginal people can reclaim self- identity, self-determination and tribal sovereignty (Brayboy, 2005). Indigenous scholars have an important role to play in developing deeper understandings of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and how it might be integrated into 150 J. KITCHEN & J. HODSON educational processes to create “fresh vantage points from which to analyze Eurocentric education and its pedagogies” (Battiste, 2002, p. 5). Battiste (2002) argues that IK must be integral part of meaningful Aboriginal education. While she acknowledges that IK varies greatly between and within nations,” she accords schools a vital role in reintroducing children to local Indigenous knowledge through the teaching of language. Through her work with the Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Network she has played an important role in identifying promising practices (Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000). Aboriginal leaders advocate for curriculum that addresses culture, language, history and intellectual traditions to ensure high quality Aboriginal education (Anderson, et. al., 2004). For example, the Chiefs of Ontario (2005) identitfy Aboriginal teachers as critical to preserving Indigenous languages and culture. According to one paper included in their manifesto: A foundational element of a high quality First Nations education system is the presence of teachers and educators who understand First Nations history, culture, intellectual traditions and language. They must also comprehend First Nations relationships with the land and creation. (Anderson, Horton & Orwick, 2004, p. 2) This manifesto speaks to the importance of preparing Aboriginal teachers so that they both understand their languages and culture and have the skills to teach through culture and the ability to teach Aboriginal languages through immersion. To help achieve this global vision of renewed Indigenous communities that have reclaimed their IK, languages and cultures, Aboriginal teacher education must prepare LIVING ALONGSIDE 151 decolonized teachers who understand the intricacies of balancing the greater vision with Euro-Canadian curriculum. But this is no easy task given the many stylistic and epistemic differences between Indigenous ways of living and knowing and those of teacher educators from Euro-Canadian cultures (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). The efforts of teacher educators to meet the needs of Nishnawbe-Aski teacher candidates from Northwestern Ontario are examined using TribalCrit as a frame for understanding. Methodology Participant Interviews This paper gives explicit attention to the experiences of eight teacher educators who taught in the first three years with the first cohort of Nishnawbe-Aski teacher candidates in a five-year BEd program. Interviews were semi-structured and participants were encouraged to expand on their answers and offer specific examples. Questions focussed on their approach to teaching, how they adapted their teaching in this program, their greatest rewards and challenges, and their perspectives on the learning of teacher candidates in the program. Interviews were approximately one-hour in length and were conducted in locations near the residences of instructors. One of the authors (Julian) also taught in the program and is included as a participant. Two were professors in a faculty of education with extensive experience as teachers and teacher educators (Julian and Jason). Three were contract teacher educators who had retired after lengthy careers as teachers and administrators before serving several years as teacher educators (Brad, Maureen and Susan). Two were 152 J. KITCHEN & J. HODSON academics from other areas of the university were experienced university instructors. The final participant (Peter)—and the other instructor, who was not available to be interviewed—were experienced teachers who had taught in band-controlled and public schools in the Sioux Lookout district. Most were Euro-Canadian, yet all had experience working with Aboriginal learners. Three (Julian, Dale and Sylvia) had several years’ experience researching Aboriginal education, and each had previously taught courses geared to Aboriginal university students. Three had family connections to Aboriginal communities: two were Aboriginal (Maureen and Sylvia), and one had extended family who is Aboriginal (Susan). One (Paul) and the non-participant (no longer living in the community) taught Nishnawbe-Aski students for many years in their communities and in Sioux Lookout. One (Brad) had taught in a Native Teacher Education Program (diploma program), while one (Jason) attended a secondary school in the north which was 25% Aboriginal. Analysis In analyzing the data, the research team borrowed tenets of grounded theory to provide “a procedure for developing categories of information, interconnecting the categories, building a “story” that connects the categories, and ending with a discursive set of theoretical propositions” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, as cited in Creswell, 1998, p. 150). Members of the team identified emerging patterns in the data while considering individual responses in their cultural context. Codes, categories, individual stories and the Aboriginal context were juxtaposed and discussed by the team collectively in order to identify key themes derived from the interactions of the six participants. Aboriginal members of the team played crucial roles in providing a cultural context for statements LIVING ALONGSIDE 153 made by participants. In presenting evidence, we have assigned pseudonyms to individuals in order to protect their anonymity; some details have been modified that might otherwise reveal the identities of participants. In the spirit of respectful inquiry, this paper has been reviewed by the bi-epistemic research team and quotations have been vetted by participants. Finally, both authors have been involved in the program as well. Julian Kitchen, who has a long standing interest in issues associated to Aboriginal teacher education, has taught a course in the program. John Hodson has had a long time involvement in the program from conception, that began with an extensive community consultation, the accreditation process and the ongoing management of the program. As stated earlier in this paper this research is nested within a larger two-year study of the BEd program, which includes a Talking Circle with teacher candidates, interviews with university staff and community members, an analysis of program documents and curriculum resources, and a Talking Circle with teacher candidates. The Talking Circle, which employed the Wildfire Research Method (Kompf & Hodson, 2000), was a semi- structured discussion in which teacher candidates were invited to share their experiences and observations in a communal and sacred research environment respectful of the traditions and cultural beliefs of Aboriginal people and the importance of a relationship with the land. The session was run by John Hodson, an experienced Aboriginal facilitator who understood the crucial role the importance of interconnectedness, respect, and the wisdom of the Indigenous intellectual tradition (Goulet & McLeod, 2002).

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.